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Devolution was designed as a cure for decades of neglect. It was to take resources closer to the people, unlock opportunity in marginalised regions and restore dignity to forgotten parts of Kenya.
However, in far too many counties especially in the ASAL region, the dream has been hijacked by absentee governors who have turned public office into a remote-control enterprise. The elected leaders are missing in action at a time when they are needed most.
They are absent from crumbling health centres without drugs, absent from schools without infrastructure, absent from drought-stricken villages where children trek kilometres for water. Yet they are ever-present in boardrooms in Nairobi, at international conferences, and on social media feeds curated to project progress.
Billions have flowed to counties since advent of devolution with ASAL counties, in particular, have received equalisation funds and generous allocations precisely because they started from behind. But what do we have to show for it? Impassable roads that are repeatedly “launched.” Boreholes that break down months after commissioning, dispensaries that are buildings without medicine, ECD centres without classrooms and projects announced with fanfare but never completed.
The greatest betrayal is not just financial, it is generational. In ASAL regions, children already battle harsh climates, food insecurity and vast distances to school. Devolution was to level the playing field but instead, their absentee leadership has deepened inequality.
Funds that should have built boarding schools, equipped science labs, trained teachers and provided school feeding programmes have been swallowed by inflated contracts, ghost projects and bloated recurrent budgets. When governors prioritise travel, convoys and public relations over planning and supervision, development stalls.
When county assemblies look the other way, oversight collapses. When citizens are reduced to cheering crowds at groundbreaking ceremonies, accountability dies. The result is predictable: stalled infrastructure, mounting pending bills, and youth whose only visible county project is a stadium they cannot use because there are no jobs, no industries and no investment.
In many regions, time is not a luxury and every wasted financial year condemns another cohort of children to substandard education and limited life chances. Every misallocated shilling steals from a girl who needs a scholarship, from a pastoralist family that needs water infrastructure, from a health centre that needs a nurse.
Absentee governors have done more than mismanage funds, they have suffocated hope. They have reduced devolution to a slogan while centralising power around themselves and abandoning the very communities that elevated them. It is time for citizens to demand presence and performance. Devolution cannot survive on ribbon-cutting and rhetoric. It requires leaders who show up, stay grounded and put people before prestige. Anything less is not just incompetence, it is a historic betrayal of Kenya’s most vulnerable population.
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By Editorial